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Straight from the forges of Kenosha. Photo by American Motors Corporation

1982: Luxurious AMC Concord gets Ziebart no-rust, GM Iron Duke power

For AMC shoppers who didn't want any Renault genetic material in their cars.

October 11, 2017

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By the early 1980s, American Motors— considered just small enough to fail by the United States government— had received what amounted to a bailout by the French government, and some interesting new Franco-Kenoshan machines loomed on the horizon. In 1982, though, the biggest-selling AMC cars were the all-American, homely-but-solid Concord and its all-wheel-drive Eagle sibling. Here's a magazine ad for the 1982 model of the Concord, touting it as a well-warrantied, gas-sipping, rust-proof compact.

The exhaust was warranted against rust-through for a full year or 12,000 miles, which was pretty good for Wisconsin. Photo by American Motors Corporation

The only way to get even close to the fuel economy AMC boasts of in this ad was to get the five-speed manual transmission (hooray!) coupled with the GM Iron Duke four-cylinder engine (groan!). The Duke was fairly reliable and made semi-acceptable power (by 1982 standards), but was an agricultural-equipment-grade rough-runner, much less civilized than the Porsche 924 engines AMC had been using in the 1978-1979 Concords.